Questionnaire Review and Development Process

a- Questionnaire Review

In the survey these are areas incorporated in the questionnaire. These are briefly introduced below and detail questionnaire itself can be found in appendix (B) and the detail development of the questionnaire is in chapter 5 (section 5.4 pp. 102). Chapter 6 (section 6.2 pp. 114) includes the detailed statistical analysis of the survey findings

Theme 1: Banking channels:

Banking channels refer to the methods of banking and services that customers can use to conduct their banking transactions and obtain information using electronic communication channels. Banking channels looked at in this study including; online banking, ATMs, branch banking, and telephone banking.

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Theme 2: Relative Advantages and ease of use:

This factor investigates online banking advantages including; the advantage service availability which is 7/24 bank services and anywhere, the cost of online transactions, and the accuracy of online banking transactions.

The usage of online banking website perceived through two items in the questionnaire aiming to look at the mental effort and understanding the procedures of online banking technology. Transactions Performance and confidence of using online banking website are also merged to this them in order to cover the perception of online banking usage.

Theme 3: Intention

The intention towards online banking technology looked at from three angles, first using online banking for communication purposes and for most of customers’ banking needs, second, customers’ beliefs regarding benefits and simplicity of the technology which may present a great impact on customers’ intention towards online banking in Libyan banking industry. Finally, the access that online banking can gives to customers to enable them to conduct banking transactions more quickly, make the best of their times and to manage their financial resources more effectively.

Theme 4: Reputation Issues

This factor looked at from the bases of customers’ perception of the influence of their friends and family in their behaviour and way of using online banking and how important are they to support the use of online banking.

Theme 5: Transactional issues

The issues of online banking transactions looked at from two aspects, transactions related information and how they dealt with before and during an online banking session.

Theme 6: Perceived Privacy

Online banking privacy explained her as customers’ authentication and providing safety of providing personal and valuable information through the system of online banking.

88 Theme 7: Security issues

Online banking security is concerning the provision of secure environment for customers using online banking including establishing policies to protect customers’ accounts and repay any money taken from their accounts through unauthorized transactions. The bank as reliable service provider and trusting Internet as a reliable medium for banking transaction, are also concerned in this them and looked at as sub-factors for security issues.

Theme 8: Technical and legal support issues

Technical and legal issues including equipment the suites customers to use online banking such as personal computer and Internet connection. Knowledge, expert staff, legislations are all meant to be as factors looked at in this them.

Theme 9: Trust and Risk

As the concept of trust usually comes with uncertainty or risk and if there was no risk there would no trust and action would be required. This them is comparing financial loss versus financial gains when using the technology of online banking, including the decision of performing banking transaction online comparing a significant risk with a significant opportunity of using online banking.

Theme 10: Technology Readiness

Factors related to technology readiness might be summarised in four technology level drivers; first, the personal level of technology which is the “Optimism”, the second part is explaining the technology temper and development which is “Innovativeness”, the third part which is looks at the

category of inhibitors “Discomfort” and the fourth part which looks at the category of “Insecurity). These Drivers and categories were explained specifically in (chapter three (section 2.6.2, pp. 65).

Theme 11: Demographic Profile

Demographics issues looked at in this them, such as having a bank account, place of accessing Internet, Internet experience, conducting or heard about

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Internet shopping and largest amount spent on online transactions. Age and Gender where also may have a great impact on the issue of customers’ trust and acceptance of online banking technology in Libya.

b- Questionnaire development process

The process of development and validation of questionnaire is based on the approaches recommended by Churchill and Iacobucci (2002) and Moore and Benbasate (1991). Figure 4. 3 illustrates the simple procedure that was used as a guideline for constructing an effective questionnaire.  Step 1: Specify Information Sought:

The specification of information required for research depends on the constructs stipulated in the conceptual framework. In the present study, the conceptualization of constructs has been described in Chapters 2, 3 and 4.

 Step 2: Item creation:

The initial pool of items was created from the review of literature dealing with quantitative studies on customer behaviour towards technology acceptance, trust in online banking and electronic commerce, (e.g. Jarvenpaa et al., 2000; Gefen, 2002; Gefen et al., 2003; Pavlou, 2003; Hahn & Kim, 2008; Yap et al., 2009), and technology readiness (e.g. Bhattacherjee, 2002; Chellappa, 2003; Davis, 1989; Gefen, 2002; Jarvenpaa et al., 1989; 2000; Parasuraman and Colby, 2001). Literature on online banking is still at an early stage of development and is more focused presently on general issues of electronic commerce, especially in the field of online banking technology in a Libyan banking context. Therefore, some items were taken from the previous literature, with modification to fit the context of online banking. The items were developed following the framework suggested by Ajzen (2002), in which each behaviour must be defined within a well-specified framework of target, action, context, and time.

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Figure 4. 3: Questionnaire Development  Step 3: Form of response to the questions:

The questions were closed-ended with a predetermined response type accompanying each question or item. In order to maintain uniformity, regardless of response type, a seven point Likert scale was applied to all the items in the questionnaire.

 Step 4: Determine wording of each question:

Churchill (1992) states that most researchers experience a vocabulary problem, that most of them are more educated than the typical questionnaire respondent. In order to avoid this problem, it was decided

Step 1: Specify Information Sought

Step 2: Item creation

Step 3: Form of response to the questions

Step 5: Determine question sequence

Step 6: Determine Layout and physical characteristics of the questionnaire Step 4: Determine wording of each question

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that the questionnaire must be pre-tested to ensure that any misleading questions, inappropriate abbreviations, and ambiguous wording could be detected before the survey was finalised. In addition, on the first page of the questionnaire, a definition of online banking was given to ensure that the respondents did not confuse online banking with other channels of electronic banking (i.e. telephone banking, ATMs).

 Step 5: Determine question sequence:

The sequence in which the questions are presented is essential to the research effort Churchill (1992). The questionnaire in this research followed Churchill’s guidelines, which suggest starting with a few simple, interesting, and non-threatening questions, as this will encourage respondents to relax and motivate them to complete the entire questionnaire in a relaxed frame of mind. The first question in the survey questionnaire in this study was a general question, to check respondents’ awareness of different banking channels. Secondly, questions with similar initial wording were put together in a group to reduce the length of the questionnaire. The questions relating to the personal profile or demographics of the respondents, information which is regarded as sensitive, were placed in the final section of the questionnaire. The contact details of the researcher were also given at the end of the questionnaire, in case the participants wanted to contact the researcher regarding the questionnaire or to be informed of the end result of the research. Overall, the order of the questions in this study satisfied the recommended guidelines as proposed by many scholars (e.g. Churchill, 1992).

 Step 6: Determine layout and physical characteristics of the questionnaire: The physical characteristics of a questionnaire can influence the

perceived importance of the study in the respondents’ eyes, which may influence their cooperation or willingness to participate in the study, and most importantly, can have detrimental effects on the accuracy of the information obtained (Churchill, 1992). Based on such rationale, in the

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pilot study of the questionnaire,emphasis was placed on layout as well as the wording of the questions. Effort was devoted towards achieving a professional layout to reflect the credibility and importance of the study. In this context, the questionnaire was bound in a booklet format which offered ease of reading and turning pages, and reduced the likelihood of misplaced or lost pages.

 Step 7: Questionnaire Validation (Pilot study Implementation):

Conducting a pilot study before the main study allows any potential problems in the form of the questionnaire to be identified and corrected (Gill and Johnson, 2002). The aim of this pilot study was to provide a clear understanding of any potential problems with the questions and to ensure the appropriateness of the research instrument. Yin (1994) also mentions that the pilot study helps the researcher to refine data collection plans with respect to both the content of data and the procedures to be followed.

Following Yin (2003), a pilot study was undertaken in order to refine the questions and procedures. A draft of the questionnaire guidelines was discussed with the supervisory team, consisting of PhD students, so that the validity of the questions in the questionnaire could be enhanced and also to seek their opinions before finalizing the questions. Following a detailed discussion of the draft by the researcher’s supervisors, the form adopted for the pilot study was confirmed.

The pilot study used a small number of participants from three different types of bank customer (employees and customers). These types of customers were chosen using the same criteria as those in the research itself. The respondents could be as follows: ‘five respondents from bank employees, and five respondents from bank customers’. All questionnaires collected were treated as a part of the main study and at the end of the pilot study additional comments were invited.

In summary, the pilot study was an essential element of the research, in order to ensure that the questionnaire questions were clear and made sense to the respondents. Moreover, the pilot study was important in terms of measuring the time needed for

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the questionnaire, and it was a valuable initial opportunity to test the validity of the research questions. Furthermore, in practical terms, the pilot study provided the opportunity to practise the analysis of data using SPSS software.

The rationale behind the pilot study was to provide a more valid and reliable instrument, as well as to practise the processing of the quantitative questionnaire and data analysis. The initial outcomes of the pilot study analysis enabled an enhanced understanding of the subject to be gained in the target group of bank customers.